#the people on twitter voted for this one so this one i will post | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sleep-deprived-person · 2 months

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So apparently KOSA (2024 edition) is getting either thrown out until next year or put into effect in six days. That was a guesstimate based on a different person saying that's when Congress is back in session and may be false.

Update that's going in the main post at the top: it has enough support to pass Congress.

It failed the last two times because people were voting against it.

This time, KOSA has traction among the pro-LGBTQ parties. Because nobody is fucking calling their bullshit and screaming from the rooftops that calling it the "Kids Online Safety Act" is misleading.

What will it passing do?

Nothing much, only prevent any education on LGBTQIA+ (it's that stupid fucking argument about us grooming kids again), shut down nearly every fandom space on the internet, and make it required for most big tech companies to have your ID.

Want to have resources for kids to discover their identity readily available? Yes? Then fucking speak up against this stupid fucking bill.

Fandom spaces like Tumblr, Twitter (? I thought the MAGA assholes liked Musk?), Tiktok, Archive Of Our Own, and any other website that hosts fanfic or fanart? Either shut down permanently, forced to uproot to a different country and down for a while (best case scenario, and they likely won't be able to send any data, and therefore fanfics, to the US), or gutted so that you only get to put G rated cishet ships on there, if any shipping at all. How to avoid that? I've already said it: Call your fucking representatives.

Want to avoid the fucking dystopic task of being legally obligated to give big tech your government issue ID? Again, cause an uproar. Call your goddamned representatives.

If they can pass this, the ripple effects could be catastrophic.

So, for fuck's sake, any Americans that can impact this stupid fucking bill and see this? Do everything in your power to shut it down because you have until February twenty sixth (26th) to send this bill back to where it belongs.

And if you can't do that? Reblog, copy my tags, and boost the signal.

Sorry not sorry for ranting, making you scroll through that, and swearing a probably excessive amount, but KOSA is a bill with a GLOBAL IMPACT being passed by ONE COUNTRY because some old people are scared of two guys with who were told they were girls kissing within five hundred miles of a child. Fuck this shit, I shouldn't have to worry about bad bills in America but I fucking do because I use the internet and would like to avoid mass censorship. Fuck this, fuck conservatives, and fuck the fact that some boomers make your country's policies.

Now, if you won't mind me, I'm going to be up until three in the morning downloading fanfiction or copying and pasting them into a a text file if I can't so I can read them by the end of the week.

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intersectionalpraxis · 5 months

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X/Formerly known as Twitter user states: I was walking around Tokyo today and an old Japanese man was wearing a Palestine flag with "stop genocide in Gaza." He was handing out a newspaper article that called out Israel's occupation and how it's against humanitarian law. I took one and he asked if I understood Japanese…" [this person later clarifies in the next post that they do not, but they accepted it and they provided an image of this newspaper article they recieved, which I attached, with a Google translation of the document, which I will add English translations for that were provided by this user on X/Twitter: @ fumiyafilm

Newspaper article piece states (Google rough translation: Japanese to English):

Rather than making human rights and democracy a double standard, we should put "life and livelihood at the centre of politics." Gaza : no one stands above international humanitarian law for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. As Israel's occupation and blockade of the Gaza Strip intensifies, an emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution co-sponsored by Jordan and others calling for "humanitarian" measures with 121 votes in favor and 1444 votes against [I believe the translation captured this incorrectly -I believe they mean 144?)] (Japan is). Canada's amendment did not recieve two-thirds majority required for adoption. The difference between the two resolutions is whether or not they specify resposibility for Hamas's terrorist acts. Jordan's proposal does not name Hamas, calling the increase in violence since the October 7th attack and "act of terrorism." You could say that, Jordan's plan is supported not only by Middle Eastern countries but also countries in the so-called Global South, such as Brazil, Malaysia, and South Africa (India is in favor and France is in favor of the G7). Protecting civillains does not mean ordering more than a million people to evacuate to a place with no shelter, food, water, medicine, or fuel. What we are seeing in Gaza is a clear intentional -This is a violation of humanitarian law, and I am deeply concerned about it. No party, no matter what, stands above international humanitarian law. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asserts, international public opinion (cut off on document) "war," "Arab vs. Israel," Pro-Israel is not pro-Barres," but rather a international movement calling for (unsure part of this document here) "stop the humanitarian crisis…"

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ms-demeanor · 8 months

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i mean realistically many people do deserve to be the victims of targeted harassment campaigns. if you're being an asshole you deserve to be screamed at by everyone present until you stop. some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

damn following up the last ask, ig it was someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out. my bad lol thought that was part of ur main post

I mean this is something that's still worthwhile to bounce off of even though you're not actually responding to me.

First of all, no, I pretty much don't think that anybody deserves to be the focus of a targeted harassment campaign. At least not the kind that are spun up on tumblr or twitter. I generally think that targeted harassment campaigns don't work to change minds, they only work to torment, isolate, and attack people, which will often further entrench them in their positions.

Sometimes people doing serious antifascist work will make a discovery like, for instance "the principal of X school is a vicious antisemite" and will run an *exposure* campaign to get them removed from a position of power, but with very few exceptions when you see an online callout post for a random internet user it's nothing but abuse and an attempt to bully them off of a specific website, not an attempt to protect victims or inform people of a genuine threat. "ABC is the new alt of this person with a documented history of starting cults, DNI, block and move on" is very different than "This specific user who is on staff posts harry potter fanart and is why fascists continue to exist on tumblr, let's make sure they know what tumblr thinks of them."

You are trying to frame bullying campaigns as normal consequences for antisocial behavior, but the antisocial behaviors under discussion here are "user posted fanart broadly disliked by the community and associated with specific ideologies long after the initial fandoms were crystallized" and "is the CEO of a social media website that is implementing features that the users dislike."

"People deserve to be screamed at until they stop the bad behavior" is punitive and shitty and so broad and open to so many interpretations that you're basically saying "it's open season on screaming at people." I think that it's bad behavior to support neoliberal political candidates who prop up capitalism but it would be horrible for me to run harassment campaigns against everyone who says "vote blue no matter who" even though I think that attitude perpetuates real world harms. (And it also wouldn't convince those people to change their minds! The fact that I think they are doing something harmful doesn't give me the social license to send hundreds of people to harass them! And it wouldn't work! These kinds of campaigns don't effect change they just isolate people and erode trust and civility jesus fuck we need to be coalition building not posting callouts over whatever activity has been deemed "freak behavior" this week)

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

oh buddy, I think I get where you're coming from here but considering the kinds of behavior under discussion this is just straight up fascist. You are literally saying that people should be banished from society for wrongthink because nobody under discussion here has actually committed an act of cruelty.

(one of the things that i'm putting under the heading of "tumblr conspiracist thinking" is "staff is currently and continually intentionally flagging certain LGBTQ tags and bloggers" - there is ample evidence that the current staff is working to unfuck flagging and blocked tags that was done long before this crew was working on it. People talk about "tumblr had to settle because their filtering disproportionately impacted lgbtq+ creators" and that is TRUE however that was a filter that was established under different owners with different policies and different staff; the implication that the current staff is guilty of trying to stifle LGBTQ+ content because a lawsuit started before the Automattic purchase of tumblr ended in a financial settlement is just bad, wrong, incorrect, faulty logic. And if I might indulge in a bit of my own conspiracist thinking: I actually suspect a lot of the flagging and tagging and blocking of trans women specifically might actually be targeted attacks of individual users by terfs - many of the things that are getting flagged as needing a community label are things that use tags that terfs follow to attack and if enough users click "this needs a community label" the post will get flagged - I don't know that that's what's going on but just operating on occam's razor I think it's a lot more likely that terfs are coordinating attacks on trans people than that there is a secret group of cryptoterfs on staff taking time out of their day to ensure that trans users get flagged, if only because I think that the vocally trans positive former members of the staff would have said something about it.)

So, given that my position is "it is unlikely that anyone on staff is intentionally targeting LGBTQ+ groups HOWEVER prior policies enacted harm against LGBTQ+ groups and there is visible evidence that the current staff is trying to repair that damage" I'm not seeing any behaviors here that call for individual employees or users to get targeted with harassment from thousands of users.

But anyway, back to the specifics of the ask:

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

Do you have any idea how frequently amends are made and never circulated as widely as the callout post? Do you have any idea how frequently callout posts are incorrect, and exaggerate the things that need to be amended? I'm reminded of Lindsey Ellis, who was the victim of a years-long targeted harassment campaign and made multiple apologies over the years who was finally driven off of her primary platform because she carelessly misspoke and the people who had been targeting her for years were able to make a post that she had long disavowed and was a relic of her dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence go viral. The internet doesn't let people make amends; people see accusations. They see the first post, not the follow up. That's why starting these campaigns is shitty and dangerous even if you *personally* believe that you'll forgive an individual once they "make amends." (and the "amends" people usually demand are "i want this person gone from the internet forever and cut out of this part of their life" - that's not really something that's fair to ask of people when so much of the world is online these days.)

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

No they don't. Straight up. If the manager of a wendy's sprays you in the neck with a milkshake you have the right to escalate your complaint right up the chain, take your business away and never come back, warn other people "hey the manager sprayed me with a milkshake, stay away," but you don't have the moral right to escalate the situation by screaming at them (and you certainly don't have that right if you happened to get sprayed with some milkshake while the manager was attempting to fix the frostee machine when you came to pick up your order, which I think is actually more analogous to what is happening here).

someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out

A big point that I think you're missing here is that @-ing staff when there is a problem on a post or you see harassment is generally pretty acceptable (though much less effective than filing a support claim), but the issue under discussion isn't @-ing staff, it was pointing thousands of angry people at two specific people who are *part* of staff and holding those two individuals responsible for all the problems that users see with tumblr.

partyjockers got nuked because their post directed a flood of harassment at one staff member in a post where they had highlighted that user's URL and name:

This is explicitly saying "users like the one I screenshotted are the reason you're being attacked by terfs" because one member of staff posted fanart from two franchises that tumblr-the-userbase has deemed off limits.

(Do you have any idea how extreme a bubble this is? Do you walk into barnes and noble and sigh because the managers are fascists who want trans people dead because there's harry potter merch everywhere? JK rowling is a terf and a horrible fucking person and I am no longer personally comfortable engaging with that fandom but people posting fanart of a franchise are not personally attacking you even if it feels like they are disregarding your humanity; you cannot consider other people's participation in huge, popular, mainstream fandoms as a sign that they are plotting against you this is why i'm calling this conspiracist thinking the entire scorched earth conspiracy spawned from someone interpreting a staff member's art as esoteric signposts signalling their hatred of trans people. Do you remember when the stupid harry potter game came out and this entire website was despondent because it meant that people didn't care about trans people? That's not actually what it meant! What it meant is that the vast majority of people on the planet have neither a twitter nor a tumblr account and have no idea how shitty JK rowling is to trans people and they don't interpret "harry potter imagery" as "covert terf signal" they interpret it as "possibly the most mainstream fantasy series in the last fifty years")

This isn't someone calling out the manager after they spray you with a milkshake. The manager asking someone to leave after they started screaming that the cashier's earrings were hate speech.

This analogy got out of hand but please just understand that there's a difference between @-ing an account that people are paid to monitor as part of their jobs and that they have support and coworkers to help with and @-ing someone's personal account.

Nobody got a post deleted because the used @ staff, they got their posts deleted because they focused viral negative attention on individual users.

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enigma2meagain · 1 year

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🚨🚨 URGENT! Congress trying to pass anti-LGBT bill under the guise of “child safety”!

UPDATE 09/05/2023:

Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of her bigotry

So Marsha Blackburn, in her infinite wisdom, decided to admit in an interview with the bigoted Family Policy Alliance that the Kids Online Safety Act is a GIANT anti-transgender bill (or at the least, it’s so poorly written that it makes targeting transgender people easier). Naturally, after this blunder, she and Blumenthal are trying to do damage control. But WE have the videos, and people’s responses to this open confession in the links below:

Alejandro Caraballo’s Tweet with the Video.

Erin Reed’s followup article

Attempts at damage control commented on by Ari Drennen

PinkNews’ article about it.

Beacon Broadside Article

Mashable Article

So with all that in mind, please make way to the Bad Internet Bills website to tell your Senators that you STRONGLY advise them to drop their support/refuse to support this awful bill in light of this, or that their re-election chances will drop considerably.

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UPDATE 02/14/2023: Richard Blumenthal is a lying snake who’s trying to get both KOSA and EARN IT Act back into law.

He persistently continues to ignore all of the backlash against these bills, the criticisms and highlighting the serious flaws of the bill by numerous human rights and LGBTQ organizations, and it’s telling that there seems to be no one who opposed the bill at the hearings today.

Fortunately, there are those are speaking up against it, such as Evan Greer from Fight For The Future.

Keep your eyes and ears open. We will be hearing more about these bills as time goes on.

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UPDATE 01/30/2023: Well, Chuck Schumer has chosen to backstab human rights and pro- LGBTQ communities, as well as the internet by trying to fast-track KOSA. The time table is as follows:

REINTRODUCTION OF THE BILL IN FEBRUARY

HOLDING MARKUPS IN MARCH

And holding a floor vote in JUNE

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1620088145554579456

KEEP IN MIND, this was the man who blocked legitimately good anti-Big Tech bills like AICOA on the pretense they would be “too much”, but was perfectly fine with the travesty of KOSA.

This man is in Big Tech’s pockets, because only they can afford to pay the fines that such a restrictive pro-censorship bill would enforce. The only people this bill helps are the exact people it claims to stop, while LGBTQ people have to pay the price for the greed of the corrupt congressmen and women.

All of the relevant links are still below, but I will be updated this as we go.

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UPDATE 01/17/2023: Nothing has happened yet, but there have been rumblings of our “favorite” Senator Blumenthal talking about trying to push KOSA in again. I’ll mostly be keeping an eye on things for now, and you guys should too on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and news outlets.

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UPDATE 12/20/2022: KOSA BILL HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN THE FINAL OMNIBUS BILL! WE DID IT!

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1605261800479547392

That being said, this is very much a reprieve, since Blumenthal and Blackburn, and their cohorts have made it clear they intend to get this bill back into Congress next year. But WE DID IT. We managed to get this bill stopped from being added in the omnibus bill.

I want to thank all of you who helped to reblog this post, signed the various petitions and the open letter, and especially if you went and called your Senators. Without your effort, this might have turned out VERY differently!

Thank you all, and I hope the rest of this year is a pleasant one!

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So, this is a particularly long post, but it’s an absolutely IMPORTANT ONE. PLEASE REBLOG! LIKING IS USELESS!

UPDATE 12/14/2022: Two weeks ago, 90+ human rights, LGBT, and tech orgs signed onto an open letter telling Senators NOT to pass this bill. in response, over 230 orgs led by the American Psychological Association signed a letter urging senators to push this bill forward.

An updated version of the bill has been pushed forward by Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn, who claim to have changed the bill in response to feedback, but insight by the likes of Evan Greer and Ari Cohn have made it clear that the changes are superficial at best, and arguably fail to properly address the problems of the original bill.

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1603139423071309825

We got blindsided by this, and we REALLY need your help!

Further explanation HERE: https://www.tumblr.com/fullhalalalchemist/703545300138262528/urgent

POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. about your opposition to this! The more voices speaking out the better, and we can’t do this alone!

The Hashtags are:

#KOSA

#STOPKOSA

#KidsOnlineSafetyAct

“Kids Online Safety Act” (no hashtag and quotes, just the regular words)

And PLEASE call your Senators at (202-224-3121).

ESPECIALLY CALL THESE THREE, SINCE THEY ARE THE MAJOR PEOPLE WHO COULD END UP PUTTING THE BILL INTO THE OMNIBUS/MUST PASS SPENDING BILL:

Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441

Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542

Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965

LINKTREE WITH ALL INFO HERE: https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

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ORIGINAL POST:

In a particularly scummy move, the Kids Online Safety Act is going to be put into the must pass end of year spending bill: www.axios.com/…

The two laws best positioned to get rolled into big year-end legislative packages, according to advocates and lawmakers, are:

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require platforms to guard kids from harmful content using new features and safeguards and to make privacy settings "on" by default for children. The law also mandates privacy audits and more transparency about privacy policies.

At first glance, the bill doesn’t sound bad, since it’s about helping “protect children” online. But like every “protect the children” type law, this would censor the internet of anything “harmful” to children aka any LGBT, NSFW, or whatever the Right doesn’t like, force everyone to upload their govt ID’s to even access anything online, and surveil everyone else. Gutting everyone’s privacy in an era where we see massive state violence and encroaching fascism globally. This is not only pushed by the same people (Senator Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn) who created the awful EARN IT Act, but also has many of the same flaws, such as pro-censorship, anti LGBT resources and content, and pro-mass surveillance.

But the biggest problem, as Mike Stabile has pointed out, is HOW the mechanism to which this works: The State Attorney General.

This addition would allow states like Texas and Florida to sue companies for having LGBTQ+ content, along with sex education resources, incentivizing these platforms to ban that content. To be more specific, the bill allows the state attorney general to sue if they believe that platforms do not protect minors from a list of harms that includes politicized terms like "grooming" which, as we've seen can include any sort of LGBTQ information, entertainment or literature.

RuPaul on TikTok?

A clip on transgender youth on Facebook?

A gay character in a Disney movie?

Suicide hotlines for gay youth?

Cue a suit from Texas or Florida targeting the entire web.

And the problem is that given the current political climate and the cruel behavior of a number of GOP aligned political groups in positions of power, this only ends up making things RIPE for abuse and mass censorship (since companies will probably end up choosing to acquiesce to their demands rather than risk being subject to liability) not to mention the damage this would cause to children who might need resources regarding LGBT or sex education.

Furthermore, the definition of “sexually exploitative material”, “grooming”, and “child porn” has been used in the past year to target transgender people, drag queens, and the wider LGBTQ+ community by likening their very existence as sexually violent. Yet another way this bill’s language will be used to target a community that is already facing violence. Every night, Fox News blasts a story on “sexualization of children '' to fear-monger around the LGBT community. One needs to not look any further than the right-wing ecosystem to see how KOSA would easily be weaponized.

This article by Mike Masnick on Techdirt also goes further into KOSA and its adjacent bills.

To make matters even worse, on top of the usual suspects of NCOSE ( They used to be called Morality in Media, and are a far right group disguised as an anti sex trafficking org infamous for being religious assholes who HATE anything to do with sex or LGBT) supporting this travesty of a bill, it’s been revealed that the Senate leader is claiming there’s no opposition.

This is literally giving the fascists a dangerous tool to abuse, all for the sake of political brownie points against ‘Big Tech’. A tool that far right groups like the Heritage Foundation have OPENLY stated will abuse to silence LGBTQ+ or sex-ed content for youth everywhere if it passes.

The ONLY way this works is by making sure who is and isn’t a minor is to have some form of age-verification scheme. And the only way to do that is through a third party like ID.me which has recently come under scrutiny for, you guessed it, data leaks. So everyone who accesses anything online will be forced to upload their govt IDs. How is this protecting anyone’s privacy?

With all that said, what can we do?

Well, the same thing we did for the EARN IT Act; we make a LOT of noise, and get the word out.

If you have read all of the above and want to fight this, sign this open letter against KOSA.

And PLEASE call your Senators at (202-224-3121).

ESPECIALLY CALL THESE THREE, SINCE THEY ARE THE MAJOR PEOPLE WHO COULD END UP PUTTING THE BILL INTO THE }OMNIBUS:

Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441

Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542

Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965

There is a call script with phone numbers here.

Fax them, email them. Tell them they MUST oppose this bill. CONTACT any major human rights, LGBT, and cybersecurity related organizations aligned and let them know about this bill, and the harm it can cause to LGBT rights and children! If you need more information on KOSA, we have a LINKTREE HERE.

EMPHASIZE THE HARM TO CHILDREN WHEN YOU CONTACT PEOPLE, SINCE THEY’RE TRYING TO CLAIM THAT THIS WILL HELP PROTECT CHILDREN’S PRIVACY, WHEN IT DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

There’s also a Petition by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and from Fight For the Future.

#kosa #STOPKOSA #Stop Kids Online Safety Act #earnitact2.0 #lgbt #lgbtq #LGBT Rights #earnitact #lgbtq rights #Fuck you blumenthal #FUCK BLUMENTHAL #fuck blackburn

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theminecraftbee · 1 year

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alright, so, one more thing i've been thinking about during all of this, and apologies, because i normally try to keep my blog fairly discourse-free in the grand scheme of things. but.

there are hermitcraft fans who act irritatingly morally superior about this fandom. i think it's out of some impulse to try to distance yourselves from any other mcyt fandom. it needs to stop.

the worst behavior during the polls was from the hermitcraft fans.

period.

there were so many instances of hermitcraft fans accusing the other side of cheating, of hermitcraft fans making attacks on the character of their guy's opponents, i have heard what i HOPE are isolated reports of racism in the grian/quackity fight (it was genuinely impossible to keep up with the blog's notes that round without both going into a death spiral thanks to the horrible behavior of scar fans during techno/scar and also without losing track instantly of where we were due to the frankly insurmountable volume of notes, so i did not see it, but unfortunately i fully believe it). i have seen people receiving awful asks - saw people being accused of 'betraying' the hermitcraft side due to voting for quackity or techno, for example.

and for a fandom that likes to act like it's better than the other guys, well. the dsmp fans were generally very well behaved in comparison. (shoutout, for example, to quackblr - i saw maybe one or two possible instances of bad behavior, but for as intense as you all were, you all were normally mostly just retaliatory towards whatever energy was thrown at you.) it wasn't supposed "outsiders coming in" that was doing this bad behavior, either.

folks, you can't blame the dsmp when the problem is inside the house. you can't blame twitter users when you're doing it here. you can't blame the reddit when you're the ones throwing the first death threats.

get off your high horses. we're all mcyt fans. we're all having the same fun. get off your high horses. you can hardly claim we're entirely all "unproblematic" when keralis accepted a sponsorship from the wizard game and xisuma periodically gets another round of getting shouted down over something he said on xisumasays. get off your high horses. you can't claim we're the accepting, good behavior fandom, unlike those other guys, when you're the ones causing the problems.

now, as always, i'm sure this is a law of large numbers thing to some extent. as technoblade, wise as he is, said: sometimes when you get a large enough group, you're going to have a few serial killers. but for the amount that hermitblr likes to act better than Those Other Minecraft Fandoms, and those Other Fandom Websites, it wasn't those guys that made me cry.

to be clear, the majority of you have been well-behaved. but there's a persistent tendency in this fandom to act strangely morally superior to other fandoms. and, y'all? you aren't.

you just aren't.

and the sooner you acknowledge that, the less likely this is to happen again, because once you admit that yeah, we can be toxic too? that's when you can start actually looking at yourself and trying not to be.

anyway, sorry again to make this post. i don't want to be a downer, hence why, outside of the official mod statements of "chill the fuck out", i didn't make this until now. (it also helps that i wanted to wait until i was no longer furious, upset, and death spiraling.) i have seen a lot of the best of this fandom over the past two weeks! i've just also, unfortunately, seen some of the worst, and feel the need to make this statement because it's just... been eating at me.

i don't want this to continue to be a trend. i think we can do better. do so.

#discourse #hermitcraft #side note. please don't come into my inbox about this i WILL just delete it (even if you're agreeing with me)#i also don't need a 'sorry this happened' so much as a. idk. i'm making this post so maybe people realize that they're doing this at all #and stop doing it #anyway wanna reiterate: 90% of y'all were nice. the problem is everyone likes to pretend the 10% doesn't exist #and i'm just... tired of that.#so here i am! psa over

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anobjectshowguy · 2 months

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I hope people in the OSC (and other fandoms in general) who are ok with or neutral about Kosa realize that not only will we lose a bunch of platforms that allow us to interact with each other (Tumblr, discord, Ao3, Wattpad, Twitter, YouTube, etc) but will also get rid of at least 80-95% of our fandom.

The OSC consists mostly of people between 13-17 who (if Kosa goes through the Senate and Houses of Representatives and gets passed as a law) will most likely no longer have access to YouTube and other social platforms which actively kills almost all the people who read and watch Object Shows!

By visiting and sharing animated shows like II or BFDI those creators make money which gives them the means to keep making their shows and paying their animators, voice actors, writers and so much more. This bill will actively get rid of most of the people who watch these shows which will cause a large loss in support and revenue for these creators and will most likely mean the end for any smaller object show.

Object show comics rely on people sharing them around in fandom spaces since they’re not animated and put on YouTube like animated object shows are. By losing these spaces and the people who support their content these creators will no longer be able to reach a large audience and get the support they need to continue their comics. This means that we will lose a lot of the comics that the OSC has!

Most of the content you see in the OSC is made by minors, which this bill will actively destroy and thus kill this fandom and many others!

So I am begging of you OSC and other communities, Please please please sign petitions, tell your senators and representatives that you don’t want this bill to pass, and tell anyone that you can reach about how this Bill is a violation of privacy and minors' rights! Re-blog anything you see with helpful information about what Kosa is and keep talking about it! We need to tell people about it so that this doesn’t go through the Senate. Remember, the final day is February 26, we don’t have that long!!!

Here’s some helpful resources:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/you-can-help-stop-these-bad-internet-bills

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qqueenofhades · 2 months

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What do you think of the movement to vote "uncommitted" in the primary? Personally I think it's a good idea as a protest vote, while not "allowing Trump to win" since it's, ya know, the primary. You're voting for "the Democrat you want to be the candidate for president" not who you actually want to be president. Most of the arguments I've seen against it seem to forget primaries exist...

Well, since you came to me and presumably do want my honest opinion on this topic, I'll share it with you. However, this will also be very blunt and candid, including some things which I haven't yet said in the 4+ months since the whole Israel/Hamas situation kicked off, and therefore also frustrated. This frustration should not be read as/taken as being directed at you personally, but since you're the conduit for this question, that's just something I want to highlight.

So. Why should you vote for Biden in the primary, and not "uncommitted" or whatever else?

First of all, what I desperately want to ask all these self-righteous VOTE UNCOMMITTED IN THE PRIMARY TO SEND BIDEN A MESSAGE types is: what exactly the fuck do you want this message to be, and what action do you expect Biden will take as a result? Is this actually based on an expectation of what he can/and or will actually do, or is it just a froth of misguided Online Leftist "rah rah this Bad Thing Happening Is All Biden's Fault," as we also notably went through when Roe was overturned by the Trump-stacked SCOTUS selected precisely for the purpose of overturning Roe? My god, the amount of bad "THIS IS BIDEN/THE DEMOCRATS' FAULT" posts that appeared, and are still circulating on the particularly idiotic corners of this site. Nothing could ever be Trump/the Republicans' fault in that case; it was the same old same old "DEMOCRATS DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO STOP THIS!!!" puerile fantasy. That's what we are getting now with Israel/Hamas. This isn't Hamas's fault for attacking Israel on October 7 (god forbid; the online left loves Hamas) and it isn't even the state of Israel and Netanyahu's fault for responding with full-scale genocide on Gaza. Or it is, somehow, but not so much that Biden personally couldn't magically reach in and stop it "if he really wanted to." I'm sick and fucking tired of this bullshit sixth-grade bad-faith disingenuous approach to playing Super Moral Social Justice Yahtzee and refusing to acknowledge the thousands of complex factors at play, especially when it involves blaming literally anyone other than Biden, personally (just like the Trump cultists, for whom "IT'S BIDEN'Z FAULT" is the beginning and end of their political theory, just like the Online Leftists). I'm sure this will get me called a genocide apologist by the Very Smart Moral Twitter Thinker types, but I don't think "Biden has failed to magically single-handedly solve this crisis, which stems from one of the most major and long-running issues in post-WWII and indeed pre-WWII world history, in four months" is actually a good reason to vote against him.

Likewise: withholding your vote might make more sense as a strategy if Biden was still only blindly supporting Israel and refusing to do anything to pressure them, which is demonstrably untrue. I know it's hard for some of these people to actually read the news and/or anything outside their ultra-curated Twitter feed, but it's been well-reported and well-documented that he is. If the US was directly involved in the bombing campaign on Gaza, sure, tell Biden that you will vote uncommitted to increase pressure on him to pull out. None of that is actually true, and the "information" about Biden's action in re: Gaza on both Twitter and Tumblr is basically just entirely malicious lies. So again: what message are you sending when you decide to be all precious and announce you're not voting for him? You don't want him to pressure Israel? You're willing to blow this up entirely and increase the media nonsense about BIDEN WEAK DEMOCRATS DIVIDED and give Trump an opening to exploit? You really want to announce to the Trump/Putin/Netanyahu axis of evil that their anti-Biden propaganda is working (since all three of them are working as hard as they fucking can to get Biden out of office, and as someone who opposes all three of them, I think this is a good idea to vote for Biden!) and they need to hammer harder on this wedge issue? Because that's all your oh-so-moral Uncommitted vote is doing. It's not a protest. It's not leverage. It is the withdrawing of leverage. If you want Biden in office so he can be pressured to listen to you and take action that you agree with, you will vote for him. Yes, in the primary. Yes, when it's not directly against Trump.

You want a ceasefire, you say? GREAT! WE ALL WANT A CEASEFIRE AND/OR ACTUAL PEACE AND RECOGNITION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE! That's in fact why you should be busting your fucking ass to make sure Biden gets re-elected, and to give him a strong show of support in the primary. Biden is the only candidate with a credible long-term (and like, baseline functional sane adult) plan for Gaza. Biden is the one who has been pressuring Netanyahu in every single contact to tone it down and stop acting like an insane murderous maniac and therefore torching any remains of sympathy for the attack Israel suffered in October. Biden is the one who has his entire diplomatic team working on high-level contacts with the Israeli government and the Hamas representatives via Qatar, while sufficiently threatening Iran to back down from frothing at the mouth to destroy Israel (once again, just like the rest of the antisemitic western left). Biden is the one who is pushing for this not to be World War III, and yet we get Baby's First Social Justice Activist screaming at him for being GENOCIDE JOE and blaming him personally for not, as I keep putting it, shapeshifting into Netanyahu's body and making this stop. "He should publicly call for a ceasefire!" Or, and this is just a suggestion, he should DO HIS FUCKING JOB and continue to work on serious problems that don't have instant socially media marketable catchphrases and won't come with instant gratification. Also, please tell me how you plan to get both Hamas and Israel to accept the same terms for a ceasefire, abide by it, and do exactly what Big Daddy Biden told them, because you, the dedicated anti-western anti-imperialist, think that's the best course of action?

Like. I mean. As vice president and now as president, Biden is actually one of the least foreign-intervention-happy leaders the US has ever had. He was originally against the Abbottabad raid to take out Osama bin Laden in 2011; he wound down the overseas drone assassination program (at which the Online Leftists screamed bloody murder at Obama, ignored in Trump, and then refused to give Biden any credit for ending) to almost nothing, he pulled the US out of Afghanistan, and even though he's been supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, he's also been extremely slow and cautious (in my opinion, too slow and cautious) at giving them all the military hardware they need, even before this latest blockade of aid in the House by Putin's favorite little bitch Mike Johnson. He has already presided over a historic shift in US policy toward Israel, in terms of conditioning the use of lethal aid, imposing reporting requirements, starting to criticize them publicly, and calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state and more humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. Yet in the Online Leftists' mind, because he is not personally out there Captain America-ing away the Israeli bombs and/or calling for Israel to be totally destroyed "from the river to the sea" as the Tumblr activists are fond of using no matter how often Jews ask them to stop, there is nothing he's actually doing! GENOCIDE JOE!!!!! Like, I thought the anti-western anti-American crowd thought all overseas American influence was evil (but all overseas Russian and/or Chinese influence is fine). When Biden actually doesn't recklessly intervene in foreign conflicts like Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Reagan/Bush 1/Bush 2/pretty much every American president in the latter half of the twentieth century, you'd think that would get him plaudits? NAH.

"Biden should stop selling Israel weapons without Congressional approval!" Okay, sure, he should. Which he did one time, and he also repeatedly promised to veto and/or not pass any only-Israel aid package that didn't also help Ukraine and Taiwan. He's also not beholden to the frothing antisemitic Online Leftists position that Israel should just lie down and let all of its citizens be killed and its state wiped from existence. Like. We also remember that Jewish voters exist in America, right? And that Jewish lives are something which are repeatedly and demonstrably under threat in the rest of the world, including from Hamas and the Houthis (who are genuinely terrible people and the western left's warm embrace of them as principled anti-Israel actors is all we need to know about their inherent brainrot and moral vacancy). We know that maybe going full masks-off antisemite (which Biden isn't going to do anyway, for any number of reasons) isn't the greatest plan and nothing to which you should be conditioning your vote? Likewise, please tell me how you plan to make Congress (especially the GOP-led clown car House) "do what Biden wants," since you're still beholden to that being the be-all-and-end-all of moral action? Or how you account for Congress at all, and not just think The President is An Almighty King?

Aside from all this, I am sick to my fucking back teeth of the Precious Moral Princesses (gender neutral) who have spent four years lying about everything Biden has done. We had the personally blaming him for Roe ending (he could unilaterally overturn SCOTUS if he really wanted!) We had the endless bashing about student debt, only to ignore him actually making the most major effort to forgive student debt in all the post-Reagan years. We have had a complete ignoring and/or distortion of his domestic policy accomplishments, which are some of the most momentous since FDR and LBJ. We have had an utter ignoring, revision, and downplaying of the damage Trump did in one term and how very much worse his second would be. We have had to endure "WELL YOU CAN'T ASK ME TO VOTE FOR BIDEN" at every single second for every single thing, because this is such a terrible onerous thing to ask them to lift one single fucking finger to give us some more time to come up with a better solution. And yet, as astutely pointed out by one of my anons yesterday, they utterly don't care whether the obvious outcome of this action is to help Trump get back into power. Apparently that's not a moral reach too far, but straining their delicate tender moral sensibilities to fucking do the goddamn bare minimum to help us out -- both in America and around the world -- no, no. We can't have that.

Like. These people allegedly want a ceasefire, and they want it to come about by asking literally nothing more of them then posting snide anti-Biden diatribes on social media. That's the extent of the effort they're willing to put in. They can't even trouble themselves to take the first step of voting for people who want to address this crisis in a constructive way. So yeah, I have a hard time believing this is anything deeply felt in regard to opposing genocide, and just wants what makes them look morally superior. Also: I don't care if your feelings are genuinely pure and strong and you obviously oppose what's happening in Gaza (we all do!) and want it to end. In that case, why the fuck aren't you throwing your support (yes! Even in the primary!) behind the one guy who's actually working to fix it and not just posting empty platitudes on Twitter? It likewise does not excuse you from the harmful consequences of your rhetoric and actions, if you decide that the best way to act on your deep-seated and genuine desire to stop the genocide is just to blindly bash Biden all day every day. Not voting for Biden in the primary does not excuse the fact that this election is against Trump and everything horrible that he represents, and that we are in this situation largely because the online left has learned literally fucking nothing from 2016 and is eager to do it all over again. Not voting for Biden in the primary does not give you a special Gold Star Moral Activist sticker announcing that you were too virtuous to engage in the process now, but if you're sufficiently placated, you maybe will do it in November. Miss me with that bullshit. I've spent eight years pleading with people to help us fix this mess, by -- yes! engaging with the flawed process that makes partial changes!!! -- and all I hear is that same fucking nonsense. That is a large part of why this response is so steamed.

Anyway. In short, I don't think voting "uncommitted" is a good idea, I think it only helps Trump in the short and long term, I think it protests nothing, I think it represents the same old tired anti-voting schlock that I have had more than fucking enough of, and I don't endorse it by any means. However, you will see that while I can strongly and unequivocally give you my opinion that it is a bad idea, I cannot actually reach through the screen, take control of your body, and force you to obey me one way or the other. So maybe, just maybe, Biden can't do the same with Netanyahu. Weird.

#everentropy #ask #politics for ts #vote and get off my lawn #israel hamas war

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so-i-did-this-thing · 1 year

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Hey trans Florida folks - things suck, but I want to make sure y'all have more info so you can better gauge the urgency and expected risk for a new bill.

This is another long post, but please read because a lot of folks are in a huge panic at some misleading info.

You've probably seen this by now:

This is misleading. Be incredibly concerned at the path we're on because it is bad, even plan to leave the state (I am), but drag isn't punishable by the death penalty:

From the Twitter screencap: "Florida has now: 1) made drag in public illegal as a 'sex crime against children'."

Misleading. SB 1438 censors drag in front of minors w/vague, subjective language and threatens misdemeanors, fines, and license revocation for violations. This is meant to scare businesses, and even cities. We are already seeing Pride parades canceled in Florida in response:

From the Twitter screencap: "2) made sexual crimes against children punishable by death"

Too broad. Sexual battery against a child is being made into a capital felony (aka, punishable by death) in the currently proposed SB1342 .

The bill says:

"A person 18 years of age or older who commits sexual battery upon, or in an attempt to commit sexual battery injures the sexual organs of, a person less than 12 years of age commits a capital felony".

If we want a definition of "sexual battery" itself, we can jump to Florida statues at:

https://m.flsenate.gov/statutes/794.011

"Sexual battery” means oral, anal, or female genital penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or female genital penetration of another by any other object; however, sexual battery does not include an act done for a bona fide medical purpose."

Also of note in this statute:

"Serious personal injury” means great bodily harm or pain, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement."

I am not a lawyer, but to me, this looks like less of an attack against trans people for existing (via conflation with anti-drag bills), and more a way to target those providing gender affirming care -- healthcare providers or even a child's affirming guardians.

Many states are already trying to set up "aiding and abetting" laws (from the anti-abortion playbook) to punish anyone offering any kind of gender affirming care (from general therapy to vocal coaching) to a trans kid.

Florida might be hoping someone applies the "injures the sexual organs of" component of SB1342 to gender-affirming puberty blockers. Yeah, it's a stretch, but I would not be surprised to see someone try it.

Because we are already seeing the HHS committee consider sending subpoenas to gender-affirming clinics:

"House Speaker Paul Renner said he wants the House to examine how the organizations adopted their recommendations. He questioned whether the guidelines were the result of scientific analysis or whether “the integrity of the medical profession has been compromised by a radical gender ideology that stands to cause permanent physical and mental harm to children and adolescents.”

Emphasis mine. Again, I am not a lawyer, but I would not be surprised to see someone try to hold a gender-affirming clinic accountable for "sexual battery" against a child.

All these separate actions paint a grim picture.

Back to our Twitter screencap: "3) Began allowing death penaltymsentencing at at 8-4 vote instead of a unanimous vote"

Yes, true. This one is scary all on its own because it makes it that much easier for the DeSantis administration to target political enemies.

Everyone should be terrified of this:

Back to making child sexual battery a capital felony & SB1342:

Could we eventually see bills proposed that further broaden - via deliberately vague language or otherwise -what kind of "sex crimes" are punishable by death, thus fully targeting trans people?

For sure, we will absolutely see fascists try to get away with whatever they can and I hope we see more resistance against what is happening now to prevent the escalation towards genocide.

But this specific bill isn't targeting drag and it's important we understand the current threat landscape so we can plan accordingly.

Like. I'm still working on my own plan to flee Florida asap (I am a trans man) but I don't feel at risk of the death penalty just yet, so my "leave asap" is "sell the house in a month" instead of "grab the bugout bag and get in the car NOW".

It is very, very important to understand the threats we face so we don't make rash decisions that could have permanent consequences for already vulnerable people. We need to plan and act on plans with haste, but afford ourselves every opportunity to make decisions with as much accurate information as possible.

What's the status of SB1342?

As I type this, still with the senate, but check for updates at the link below. If passed, it would enact October 1, 2023.

In closing

Again, be careful, be safe, be informed. I am not a legal expert; I'm just a little guy, but the risk landscape has enough threats trans people need to respond to without us thinking drag is currently eligible for the death penalty.

Every trans person in the United States, not just Florida, should be watching what is going on across the country and noting how all these bills connect and escalate. And what could become blueprints at the federal level.

Keep hope, but plan for contingencies that could threaten your job, your housing, your liberty, and possibly even your life. Watch the news, watch your local bills, and do your best at figuring out when you need to break that emergency glass.

My biggest advice to be better informed is to learn where your state posts bills and look them up when they hit the news:

Get used to reading bills and noting when they would take effect

Learn how to follow a bill on its way into law - the stages are usually through various committees, then both the House and Senate can file amendments and ultimately vote in separate sessions to approve, then the governor signs it into law

Understand that a lot of reporting on bills can make it sound like it has passed into law, when it might still just be in a committee.

Not all bills pass, and when they do, not all pass as originally proposed. (This can work for or against us.)

Follow trans political commentators like Erin or Alejandra for more context

Again, it all sucks right now and I don't want to underscore the danger so many transgender Americans are already in (and lord knows I am very lucky to be able to leave Florida). But knowing what we're up against is one of the few defenses we have right now.

I have more advice for trans Floridians here.

#trans stuff #transgender

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